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I'm feeling over overwhelmed pulling motor...

R

Red99CSVT

CEG'er
Joined
Mar 1, 2007
Messages
437
Location
Gig Harbor, Wa
Alright I'm a fairly good mechanic and I need to do third gear syncro's ans I picked up a Torsen diff and a Fidanza flywheel to put in also but I feel like I've been spinning my wheels for the last few hours. I'm having trouble getting the cv shafts seperated fron the tranny and the indermiedate shaft. I can't even figure out how to do it I've even got the Ford factory repair manual and with it's 1000+ pages I can't figure it out :mad:. I have the car at a point where I can still put it back together but that's not going to help get my parts installed. I can't figure out what I want to do put it back together and suck up the outragous cost of having someone else install this stuff or sit here frustrated. I have a little bit of a timeline cause I don't want t he car sitting on stands for a week or two. Dammit. Oh and I'm working on a 99 CSVT for those that don't read signatures. Sorry that was a little harsh but I'm not in the best mood right now. If you've pulled the motor before pm you number and I'll give you a call mabey you can help me keep going I know I can do this I'm just stuck.
 
have loosenend the strut nut on top, remove the steering tie-rod ends, sway bar ends and lower ball joints ?

if not, do that and then on the passenger side remove the intermediate bearing and the 1/2 shaft should just slide right out.

the drivers side is a little tougher. you can either drive it out from the passenger side, or pry (carefully) it out from the driver's side...

the manual id pretty good though, just take it one step at a time...

like eating an elephant...one small bite at a time :)

report you progress and we'll help you through it...
 
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Right now I've gotten to removing the bolt and seperating the lower "A" arm from the knuckle but it won't drop far enough the how does the cv shaft have enough room to slide out of the intermiedate shaft? pretty much all the top end stuff is done y-pipe is off radiator is disconnected batt is out ecu is disconnected, etc.
 
Red99CSVT said:
Right now I've gotten to removing the bolt and seperating the lower "A" arm from the knuckle but it won't drop far enough .
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Do you mean the A arm won't drop far enough??? I used a LONG prybar thru the openings in the A arm, which gave me a little bit more "drop", if you will. Once the ball joint was separate from the knuckle, the knuckle can be slid outward (toward tire) a bit, letting the shaft slide out.
 
Ok I can't even get the lower ball joint all the way outta the knuckle. The ball joint bolt is out the top strut nut is loose what am I missing???
 
yeah, either try to push a-arm down, or i have found that it sometimes helps to push up on the disc with a floor jack. but be careful not to let it slip off and injure you..
 
You will need to tighten the upper strut mounting bolt then loosen the pinch bolt from the strut and drive the knuckle off of the strut. Then you will be able to lift the knuckle off the ball joint and set it aside. The LCA won't go down far enough because it hits the subframe, sometimes loosening the LCA mounting bolts will provide enough movement to separate the ball joint.
 
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Alright I got the ball joint outta the knuckle and I disconnected the steering in the passenger side only (so far one side at a time) I think I'm going to pull the strut now too cause I have a BAT set thats going on would it make things easier right now? It feels like I'm fighting it when I go to move the knuckle around.
 
although you will likely have to replace the ball joints because the pickle fork will ruin the boots...i did on my swap, but you can get a new set of lower ball joints on ebay for right around $32.00
 
Alright so I made some decent progress once I settled down after some help from a few fellow CEGers. I still have to pull the radiator and fans (any tricks to it, it's being a pain in my a$$), find the rest of the connectors I need to disconnect, hook up the cheery picker but I'm getting there should be able to have it out by late afternoon tommorow. Thanks or hte help today fellas.
 
Red99CSVT said:
Alright so I made some decent progress once I settled down after some help from a few fellow CEGers. I still have to pull the radiator and fans (any tricks to it, it's being a pain in my a$$), find the rest of the connectors I need to disconnect, hook up the cheery picker but I'm getting there should be able to have it out by late afternoon tommorow. Thanks or hte help today fellas.
Click to expand...


Tricks for the radiator....


First, wire up the A/C condensor to the frame to keep it in place when you drop the radiator. Then push up on the radiator and have someone push 2 8 penny nails through the top guides of the radiator so that it will rest on the frame up top. Then pull the 4 bolts for the lower radiator mounts (2 8mm on each mount). Then pull the 2 8 mm bolts (one on each side) that keep the Condensor attached to the radiator (Condensor should stay in place if you wired it up like I said). I assume you already disconnected the hoses (passenger side top and bottom and drivers side top). If you have an SVT radiator, the fan shroud must be removed from the radiator. In the middle height area of the radiator, there are two 10mm nuts that can be loosed or removed to slide the fan shroud off the radiator. Don't forget about the plug from the shroud into the A/C compressor, the ground on top passengers side of the fan shroud on the frame, the plug into the top of the A/C dryer and the two plugs on the top middle part of the fan shroud. Then slide the fan shroud out. Then push up on the radiator and have a buddy pull the two 8 penny nails and sneak the radiator down and out. You will then need to make sure the car is fairly high up in the front so that the radiator can sneak out. Don't forget to remove the plastic air deflectors from the side of the radiator/condensor.

And a hint for the A/C compressor.... when you remove the serpentine belt and when you remove the the 3 long 8 or 10 mm bolts that hold it on the engine block, just slide it back so it sits on the front passengers side of the subframe and use some mechanics wire to hold it on the subframe so that you don't have to disconnect the A/C lines from the A/C compressor. It does have enough flex in the lines to slide over and sit on the subframe and it is plenty far enough out of the way to pull the engine. I have never read the ford CD, so I have no clue if that is the way it tells you to do it. It that may not be a hint, but more so info to inform if you haven't read that.

As for pulling the half shafts, I know you got it, but you didn't need to loose the top strut mount bolt or any of that garbage. All you need to do is pull the sway bar endlinks, pop out the tie rods, and then pry down with a long bar or a long 2x2 peice of wood which is what I use to get the ball joint out. It is stupid to use a picklefork and own the ball joints when you don't need to. And there is no need at all to loosen the LCA bolts like one said. The LCA's will flex enough to get the ball joint out and with the sway bar endlinks and tie rods out, the whole front corner will just swing out of the way enough to let the LCA back up and there is plenty of play to then pop out the halfshafts.

PM me with any questions.




Reebs
 
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Reebs said:
.... pop out the tie rods, and then pry down with a long bar or a long 2x2 peice of wood which is what I use to get the ball joint out. It is stupid to use a picklefork and own the ball joints when you don't need to. .....

...
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Or use a ball joint removal tool. About $18. This is not a pickle fork. It looks like a windshield wiper removal tool.
 
Tony2005 said:
Or use a ball joint removal tool. About $18. This is not a pickle fork. It looks like a windshield wiper removal tool.
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The peice of wood I use was free... screw $18! :laugh:

Seriously though, that is a good idea if the ball joints are a pain to get out. I have never used a ball joint tool, so I can't tell how good or bad they work though. :shrug:
 
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Tony2005 said:
Or use a ball joint removal tool. About $18. This is not a pickle fork. It looks like a windshield wiper removal tool.
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just curious, because i have a ball joint removal tool for the tie rod end, how exactly would you attach that ? unless you either exert pressure on the post end or use a spreader type tool between the LCA and the knuckle...

and yes i know that the pickle fork almost always screws up the boot, but i have also found on the 4 that i have done that the ball joints are old/bad/loose/dry and replacing them is no big deal. Besides, once you install new lower ball joints, the type that mount with screws rather than rivets, that the next time removing them is a breese... :)
 
Red99CSVT said:
Alright so I made some decent progress once I settled down after some help from a few fellow CEGers. I still have to pull the radiator and fans (any tricks to it, it's being a pain in my a$$), find the rest of the connectors I need to disconnect, hook up the cheery picker but I'm getting there should be able to have it out by late afternoon tommorow. Thanks or hte help today fellas.
Click to expand...

be sure that when you pull the motor out that you mark all the vacuum lines and where they go. I neglected to do that and could have saved a lot of time during the install had i been more thorough in marking where things connected.

Also, i found it easier to replace some of the spring type hose clamps with the old fashioned type. That saved me busting my knuckles trying to manipulate a pair of pliers into tight places...
 
Thanks everyone I'm getting ready to continue pulling this sucker out I'll keep you up to date on my progress and any questions I may have. Later
 
yeah it's going to feel that way. if you want to make life easy, get two pickle forks (they are like six bucks apiece) that way you won't ruin your ball joints trying to get them apart. stack them on top of eachother once you get it spread a bit. make sure you cake the forks in grease so they don't tear up the rubber on the ball joint. once you do that, pull the whole strut/spindle out. set it aside, and your free to pull your CV. the drivers side CV joint will seem to be stuck in there, because the inner cup that is in the transmission is nearly impossible to get out without pounding it out when the trans is apart. just peel the boot off the inner part of the CV on that side and pull out the shaft, leaving the inner cup in the transmission. you can rebuild it later. on the passenger side, just pull all the nuts off for the intermediate shaft. do the same thing with the suspension. grab the intermediate shaft from under the car or reach from the side and give it a hard tug. you should pull the intermediate shaft and the passenger side CV joint out as one piece. you can install it this way too, but it's a little harder to get the intermediate shaft to settle in correctly if you do. make sure you have your transmission fluid drained when you do this, or you'll have a mess.
 
I just finished pulling and installing the engine and trans in the Mystique. I didn't have to touch the tie rods to get the CV shafts out. The ball joint did have to come out but not the tie rods. Once the ball joing is out, the nut is removed from the cv and the sway bar end links are disconnected, all I did for the driver side was turn the steering wheel all the way to the right and then lifted the hub off the cv. This the same thing but turn the wheel to the left on the passanger (right) side. This works not only on the Contour/Mystique but on many other cars too.
 
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